Mexico City: Gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash on Wednesday in a Mexican Pacific coast state where drug-gang violence has risen this year. It was the third massacre in Mexico in less than a week.
The gunmen in three vehicles drove up to the car wash in the city of Tepic and opened fire without provocation, said Fernando Carvajal, public safety secretary of Nayarit state, where the city is located. Fifteen men were killed and three people were injured.
The motive was not immediately clear but investigators suspect it was the work of organised crime, Carvajal said. He said most of the victims were recovering drug addicts and worked at the car wash.
Probe under way
One victim, however, had just driven up to the business in a motorcycle and appeared not to have worked there, and another body was found at a nearby fruit stand.
Carvajal said the owners of the business have another car wash in the city where a man was killed on Tuesday, and police were investigating whether the attacks were linked. Nayarit Gov. Ney Gonzalez said investigators believe some of the victims had been washing a stolen car. "These boys were fighting for hope, were fighting against drugs," Gonzalez said in a statement posted by the state government.
"The same as in Ciudad Juarez, the same thing in Tijuana," he said, referring to recent attacks on rehab centres.
Prosecutors in Tijuana identified one of those killed in that attack as a Colombian man, Wilson Ramirez Pena, 42.
They did not say what he was doing in Tijuana.
The gunmen in three vehicles drove up to the car wash in the city of Tepic and opened fire without provocation, said Fernando Carvajal, public safety secretary of Nayarit state, where the city is located. Fifteen men were killed and three people were injured.
The motive was not immediately clear but investigators suspect it was the work of organised crime, Carvajal said. He said most of the victims were recovering drug addicts and worked at the car wash.
Probe under way
One victim, however, had just driven up to the business in a motorcycle and appeared not to have worked there, and another body was found at a nearby fruit stand.
Carvajal said the owners of the business have another car wash in the city where a man was killed on Tuesday, and police were investigating whether the attacks were linked. Nayarit Gov. Ney Gonzalez said investigators believe some of the victims had been washing a stolen car. "These boys were fighting for hope, were fighting against drugs," Gonzalez said in a statement posted by the state government.
"The same as in Ciudad Juarez, the same thing in Tijuana," he said, referring to recent attacks on rehab centres.
Prosecutors in Tijuana identified one of those killed in that attack as a Colombian man, Wilson Ramirez Pena, 42.
They did not say what he was doing in Tijuana.
